Who was the world's first tobacco smoker?

According to the Huron Indian myth, back in ancient times the land was completely barren. The people were starving, so the Great Spirit sent a woman to save humankind. She traveled over the world, and everywhere her right hand touched, the ground potatoes grew. Everywhere her left hand touched, the ground corn grew. The world was saved. The land was fertile and producing, so the woman sat down to rest — and when she got up, tobacco grew where she had rested.

That's a neat story, but it still doesn't explain who the first person was who rolled up a dry tobacco leaf, set fire to one end, and inhaled the smoke through the other end.

There is a little evidence of the presence of nicotine in a few Old World plants like belladonna and Nicotiana Africana, and some remnants of nicotine have been found in human remains and in pipes in the near East and in Africa. However, there is absolutely no evidence of any kind of habitual use of nicotine in the ancient world anywhere except in the Americas.

Experts believe that the tobacco plant as we know it first appeared about 6000 BC, and by about 1000 BC, ancient Indian tribes had begun to find ways to use the tobacco plant — including smoking it and chewing it. By 1000 AD, tobacco use was widespread in the Americas.

Some of Columbus' sailors found Arawak and Taino Indians smoking tobacco, took up the habit, and began to spread it around the world. Beans, corn, and tobacco were actually the first products that were exported from the New World to the Old World. In his journals, Christopher Columbus goes into great detail concerning tobacco and its uses.